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Martin Leach - Profile
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Martin Leach
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Martin Leach is Professor of Physics
as Applied to Medicine, and Joint
Section Chairman and Co-Director
of the new Cancer Research UK and
EPSRC Cancer Imaging Centre at
The Institute of Cancer Research
and The Royal Marsden NHS
Foundation Trust.
Professor Leach’s research focuses
on advancing and defining the use
of magnetic resonance (MR) in
detecting cancer, diagnosing
cancer, assessing cancer spread
and evaluating patient response to
treatment.
His current projects include assessing biological processes in tissue using
MR, finding biological markers that can be used to evaluate new
treatments, working out how to use MR to more accurately target
radiotherapy to patients’ cancer cells while avoiding healthy tissue and
improving methods to measure and analyse breast cancers.
Professor Leach was drawn to cancer imaging as a way to use his
fascination with nuclear physics – sparked while a Physics student at the
University of Surrey - for social benefit. This led to a Masters in Applied
Radiation Physics and a PhD at Birmingham, where Professor Leach
began developing methods of non-invasively measuring body
composition using a range of nuclear accelerators.
In 1978, Professor Leach started at the physics department of the ICR
and The Royal Marsden, a partnership which he still considers “the best
in the country at applying research developments to cancer medicine”.
Professor Leach initially joined to develop computerised tomography
imaging devices (imaging slices through the body), helping to precisely
map tumours in three dimensions. The aim of these maps was to assist
doctors in planning radiotherapy treatment, so the cancer cells could be
accurately located and targeted with radiation. He also worked on
nuclear imaging techniques including the use of radioactive isotopes and
positron emission topography (PET). When Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(MRI) technology became available, Professor Leach worked with the
then Head of Radiology, Professor Dame Janet Husband, to plan a
programme of research to examine the possible applications of MRI in
cancer care.
“I was particularly drawn to this as it included challenging physics and
the ability to image non-invasively, but also the potential to measure the
metabolic and functional properties of tumours,” Professor Leach says.
“Our facility was the first high field system in the country capable of both
measuring metabolism and anatomy, and in 1990 we were established
as the CRC Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research Group.”
Professor Leach says developing this new area of research and bringing
it from the laboratory to the clinic has been one of his greatest
achievements at the ICR, as it has major applications for patients. Other
successful projects include demonstrating that MRI is a sensitive method
of screening for breast cancer in women with genetic mutations giving a
high risk of the disease, leading to new guidelines in the UK, USA and
elsewhere, and also that MR can be used to non-invasively measure
changes in the chemistry of cancer cells that can report on the action of
new cancer treatments targeting cell function. Prof Leach has also
developed methods to measure tumour vascular properties that now
play an important role in evaluating new treatments.
Professor Leach is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, as well
as of the Institute of Physics and the International Society of Magnetic
Resonance in Medicine. He is a Clinical Scientist and an NIHR Senior
Investigator, serves on a number of editorial boards and was previously
Editor of Physics in Medicine and Biology. He is principal investigator or
co-applicant on grants in excess of £17million, including the new Cancer
Imaging Centre, the Wellcome Trust-coordinated 3T Clinical
Infrastructure Facility, and Research Council, EU and NCI (USA) funded
http://www.icr.ac.uk/press/profiles/martin_leach/ (1 of 3) [23-Feb-10 4:51:46 PM]
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Martin Leach - Profile
awards.
In the future, Professor Leach says he hopes to improve methods of
detecting and assessing cancer, and of planning and monitoring the
effect of treatments.
“This will increasingly come from combining different types of
information about function and metabolism with anatomical
information,” he says. “We will also be combining different imaging
techniques from the range of imaging equipment available in our new
Cancer Imaging Centre to find the best way to characterise disease,
guide tissue sampling and treatment, and assess novel treatments.”
Outside work, Professor Leach enjoys living in Sussex with his wife Jan,
and daughters when at home, gardening, walking, music and history.
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http://www.icr.ac.uk/press/profiles/martin_leach/ (2 of 3) [23-Feb-10 4:51:46 PM]